Educational blog articles around inbound marketing.

7 Ways Marketing Teams are Seeing Success on Social Media

Social media marketing has grown significantly in popularity over the last several years, to the point where it has become essential for every brand, from large corporations to small businesses.

The number of businesses promoting themselves on social media makes it harder to stand out from the pack and make meaningful connections with your audience.

If you take the wrong approach, you’ll just be one of the many brands people scroll over every day.

The right social media marketing tactics can make all the difference. Here are seven ways that marketing teams have been seeing success on social media.

1. Asking Questions to the Audience

The most important aspect of marketing on social media is engaging with your audience, and there’s no better way to do that then to speak to them directly.

People naturally want to have others listen to their opinions. By asking your audience questions, you’re giving them an opportunity to get their opinions out there.

You can ask your audience anything. If you’re posting content or a link to your content, you may want to end the post with a question related to the topic. This encourages your audience to read what you posted and comment on it.

Questions are also the perfect way to learn more about your audience. You can discover their likes and dislikes, and see what they think your business is doing well and how it can improve.

2. Finding and Using the Right Influencers

Influencers are an excellent way to promote your brand on social media because they have passionate audiences who listen to them. Just by subtly promoting your brand in a post, they can bring you a large influx of traffic.

The key to getting the best return-on-investment (ROI) from influencer marketing is selecting the right influencers.

It’s not enough that an influencer has a large number of followers. You need someone who appeals to your target audience and gets excellent engagement from members of your audience on their posts.

3. Setting Up a Strategy

When you have a clear and thought out plan, you are bound to get better results. With social media, this plan starts with what your goals are.

Your goals could be to generate huge traffic through viral content, build a passionate community of followers, maintain a sense of social validation or something else entirely.

What’s important is that you’re not just using social media at random because you heard it will help your business.

Once you know your goals, you can set up a clear schedule to follow. This is your game plan for every day, week and month.

For example, you could follow 10 new people and post at 9 a.m., 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. every day. Having a schedule ensures that you’re posting consistently and working towards the goals you have set.

4. Establishing a Voice

if you're wanting to make a splash on social media and develop a following then it's important to establish your voice.

Social media accounts for businesses often have their own style whether it be more professional or more playful.

Whichever direction your business leans towards, it's important to establish that through the posts you make and the ways you interact with your audience.

Figure out what you want your brand’s voice to be and make sure every post demonstrates that. Not only will this attract new followers, but if you're consistent it will keep the following you have engaged and interested in posts to come.

Plenty of businesses have found success by being different from the norm on social media, and it’s not just small businesses. Major corporations have also seen success with this.

Take Wendy’s for example. The fast food chain garnered quite a bit of press because of its sarcastic Twitter comments. Instead of playing it safe, Wendy’s took a risk and was rewarded for it.

5. Sharing Content

You should share just as much content as you post, if not more, because sharing content has several benefits.

When you share content that fits your brand’s voice, it helps you further establish that voice with your audience.

Sharing content is a simple way to keep your business active on social media without always needing to come up with new content or posts.

You should still write one or two sentences related to what you’re sharing, but this is much easier than writing a lengthy post.

Not only should you share content you've produced (such as blog posts, eBooks, etc.), but share the content of other thought leaders in your field as well.

After you’ve shared someone else's content, they’re more likely to share and interact with your content. You both benefit by having your content spread to wider and new audiences.

6. Grabbing the Audience’s Attention

Creating posts that grab the audience’s attention are essential to the success of any social media account. Otherwise, people will barely glance at your posts and you’ll get little to no engagement.

How you get people’s attention will depend on which platform you're posting to and who your audience is, but some similarities remain.

On Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, the most important factor is a great headline. It also helps to have an image accompanying your post.

If you use Instagram, it’s all about having a stunning image, because most users will only read the caption if the image interests them.

7. Connecting through Live Streaming Videos

Live streaming videos are one of the latest marketing tools available on social media, and it’s an amazing way to connect with your audience.

When you have a live video instead of something prerecorded, it creates a sense of authenticity and connection that isn't there otherwise.

There are all kinds of ways businesses use live streaming videos, and what you do will depend on your business.

Experian, one of the credit reporting bureaus, has a credit chat. Other brands use live videos to showcase their product launches or handle customer support.

No matter what industry you're in, there’s always a way you can incorporate live videos. All you need to do is find it.

Closing

One of the most exciting aspects of social media is that it’s constantly changing. Social networks update their features on a frequent basis, which can lead to all kinds of new marketing opportunities.

With all the changes that occur, being flexible is essential for your success. Most importantly, remember that the goal is always to build strong connections and develop trust with the members of your audience.

I hope you found this information beneficial and feel free to comment down below any thoughts or questions you may have.

ZioSolutions is an Inbound Marketing, Website Design, and Sales Enablement Agency. Founded in 2015 by Zachary Raineri and Geoff King, ZioSolutions is proud to be located in St. Louis, Missouri and active in helping others achieve marketing and sales success.